I'm sure it has a learning curve like any gadget. I don't have one or plan to at all but did some research for, maybe, the beach house. If it does 6 or a dozen things easily it might be a good thing. I use my slow cooker once, twice a year.

Here is a good review by Melisa Clark of the NYTimes. She even has a book out on the Insta pot. instant-pot recipe She is a good home chef and great teacher. Her recipes are well written and easy to follow. She likes her gadgets.

The not so favorable review seem more like my cooking style. I enjoy cooking, and my cookware. I also add, check, add fresh ingredients as I go, adjust seasonings, etc.

Our favorite easy meals are heavy in veg with such different cooking times that a one-pot meal is not our gig.

From my research, if stocks are in your cooking style and some roasts, I think you will learn its advantages. Might even find it easy to make stocks more often.

Thanks, sleevendog.

I enjoy cooking, and my cookware. I also add, check, add fresh ingredients as I go, adjust seasonings, etc.

Same here. I can see a lot of benefit to this for people who cook for a bunch of people, or people whose work takes them away from home all day, or even singles with good freezers, but for me, I'm still kind of kerflummoxed as to how/why to use it. It's no big deal to throw a chicken into a roasting pan.

Thanks for the link to the review. After reading it, I guess this gadget and I just aren't made for each other. I can certainly boil an egg on the stove without "pocks and craters," and I make red lentil soup pretty often and don't find it needs a lot of babysitting, for example. The meaty stuff she raves about just isn't for me.

I'm actually contemplating spending a lot of time in a situation where my total cooking equipment would be a 12-volt mini rice cooker, a 32 oz 12-volt kettle, and a single-burner butane stove, with a 2-qt fridge with no freezer. I had thought when I first opened the present that the Instant Pot might help me prepare by finessing some rice cooker recipes, but it seems to have to make an awful lot of whatever you cook.

Lucky you! What a nice gift. I bought one recently, so I don't know much yet, but I do like it! It is really great for anything you braise. We especially loved a chicken adobo and a fish curry. I bought it because Melissa Clark, one of my favorite food writers, wrote about it a year ago, and then recently said that she thought she would play with it for a month and then banish it to the basement-- but she hadn't unplugged it. So she said, throw away your slow cooker and rice cooker, and she wrote a cookbook (which I have on my wish list). She also says don't believe anyone who tells you it's great for getting a crispy brown whole chicken.

After Thanksgiving dinner, I used it to make turkey stock from the carcass, and it did it fast and beautifully.

I would like to find a good source for converting my regular stove recipes for instant pot. Eventually I will probably be able to intuit it, but for now I wish the instruction book gave guidelines.

Thanks, gellchom. I'm glad it works well for you, but I just don't see it for me, especially after looking through the recipe book they sent. So much more complicated than pan-on-stove, and larger quantities than I ever cook. If I usually cooked for two or more, or if I were seriously into meat, or if I had a good freezer, or if it were suitable for canning, I would probably love it.

I'm busy now polling friends to see who would like one for a Christmas present. :)

ETA It does seem as though you could learn to adapt recipes pretty quickly once you get the hang of it.

I bought one a few months ago... It makes making yogurt and beans much quicker and easier for me - not terribly exciting but useful. I made a pretty tough piece of Chicken. I haven’t yet tried to follow a recipe for anything else. Soup and stock are on my to do list.

I made veal stew for my DH (small portion, less than a pound of meat) in about 35 min. It gives him at least a couple of meals. I have also made 1/2 of an Empire Kosher turkey breast cooking for 25 min at high pressure and natural release for at least 15 min. Easy peasy!

Yes, yogurt is great and it also makes good hard boiled eggs (5min high pressure, 5 min natural steam release, 5 min very cold water). I would recommend you look at This Old Gal's blog. She has many ideas. Also get yourself the Instant Pot cookbook. The manual and cookbook that come with the IP are awful! If you're on Facebook or Pinterest, and Hip Pressure Cooking, there are tons of recipes and ideas.

Thanks, everyone, especially for the links and suggestions.

When they gave it to me, I was successful enough at acting thrilled that they were very pleased to have found a gift I liked so much. So I'm wondering if I could get away with this: Just after Christmas they're having an engagement party and shower for my nephew and his fiancee, who will be visiting from AZ where she's in medical school.

Do you suppose I can get away with wrapping it back up and saying that I love mine so much that I think everyone should have one? I can see it would be very useful for them.

None of my friends have ever met my SIL, but one says she's got to be too smart for me to get away with that, while others think it should work. Thoughts?

I would never consider doing that. Too much could go wrong and you might lose friends. I think the statute of limitations for gifts you don't like or want is five years. By that time they will probably forget they gave it to you and you can then dispose at will!.

DH and I mulled and mulled over whether to buy an Instant Pot. There was a fabulous sale at Sur La Table and I was ready to pull the trigger. The problem is we already have a yogurt maker, rice cooker/vegetable steamer, countertop grill and slow cooker. Yes, we could get rid of all these items and opt for just the Instant Pot to save space. But I couldn't justify the expense. The only thing we don't have is a pressure cooker and that's because I don't particularly care for pressure cooked food. I can't believe I can't find a reason to buy something! That is sad!

haha. I had an itchy finger cyber Monday. We thought maybe for the beach house but rarely use the crock pot. (once a year). Amazon pulled the sale by mid day...sold out their limit pretty quickly. I really don't need it anyway. I was relieved. Though I do like a good challenge with a new toy.

Caution.

We, as a family, re-gift all the time but openly. A purposeful re-cycling. My SIL gave us, wrapped, a very nice wine decanter they received as a weeding gift yrs ago. And told us so. Etc, many re-gifted exchanges on purpose. Books, movie promo free copies, on and on.

It is a great gift for that age bracket and busy student. But you may find yourself bluffing the fact that you have never used yours, nor a recipe to share. Because you have never used it and in fact gave it away. Could get uncomfortable if asked how you like it.

After the gazillion sold this past weekend, they may get ten. Or may have one already. Seems the entire country has a few in every household going by the sales #'s. : )

I would call them and say after reviewing, the smaller one would suit best for your needs and see if you can exchange it. Or just get something else with the return.

Or send a thank you note and state your fridge/freezer concerns. Ask if they have a few good recipes or if it can be returned....

Must be a straight forward way of playing this out that suits your relationship with them. Rather than getting caught up in a little 'fibbing' that snowballs.

Thanks for the replies. I could certainly feign the recipe part; it seems like most of the recipes I see these days are for slow cooker, so that part would be okay. But it's a very good point that they may well have one or more already, or for all I know my SIL may have bought a couple, intending to give them one.

Actually, I may be doing a major disposal of nearly everything come May, in order to become a priusdweller for a while, which means only limited 12-volt cooking. So if not my nephew and his bride-to-be, I'll have to find another friend who wants one. But I very much appreciate the feedback.

OMG!!! I'd never heard of priusdwellers before!! You're really going to do that? I was thinking multicookers must be a great way to have an "oven" while car camping in a campground with electricity. Priusdwelling? Seriously? Will you be travelling? Or just doing off grid for fun?

I'm seriously considering it, plllog, now that I qualify for the lifetime Natl Park Pass that also gives you half price on things like campsites. The only disadvantage to the Prius is that it has an extremely low clearance so you can't go places that require a 4x4 or other off-road vehicle. If you're really interested, take a look at

http://macaloney.blogspot.com

who has the whole thing figured out most elegantly, although he's taking a sabbatical from the Prius for his travels this year. But in 2015 through 2017 he spent four months of every year traveling in his Prius, usually about 20K miles.

The Instant Pot is bigger than my whole cooking apparatus space would be, but they are very popular with vandwellers. :}

I'm not surprised about the van people liking the pot--it's a natural--and I was convinced about the size issue when you said Prius. :) I didn't spend a lot of time looking at Prius people's cooking setups since I know about camping, but I'd think backpacking gear would be ideal. You can actually do a lot with a can of sterno and one of those cup shaped cooking vessels. :) It's also the packability that counts for the kitchen stuff. Mesh bags are great for being able to stuff a vessel easily and remove stuff easily.

So, if you still don't know what to do with the gift, and really don't want to use it (it took me half a year to figure out what to do with my Breville version, but I do like it now), consider giving it to a poor college student. A good deed that you can share if pressed on what you did with it without having to worry, since you'd be spreading the generousity.

Thanks, plllog. I found this very helpful:

https://cooking.nytimes.com/guides/46-how-to-use-an-instant-pot?mc=aud_dev&mcid=fb-nytimes-keywee&mccr=CookingGuides&mcdt=2017-11&subid=CookingGuides&ad-keywords=AudDevGate&kwp_0=605915&kwp_4=2143306&kwp_1=894459

but my usual cooking falls pretty much entirely in the "what not to cook" section, alas.

Hmm, I have a pair of neighbors who are medical students doing an internship here. I don't know if they cook at all, but maybe they'd like it.

As for the prius, the big deal with it is that it's essentially a giant generator on wheels, so you can do a fair amount of 12-volt cooking there, in addition to running the climate control all night if necessary. I would plan on a single burner butane stove, I think, since I prefer those to jet-boil types when I don't have to pack it in myself.

Incidentally, f you weren't aware, in Asia you can get an Audi with a built-in rice cooker option. Here it's a bit more tricky because a lot of the 12-volt small appliances are meant more for truckers and so they pull a lot of amp hours.

ROTFL! It would never occur to me to want to cook in an Audi. :) I get the Prius thing because of the off grid capabilities. The trucker angle is interesting. A lot of the big long haul trucks have basically a whole RV set up in the sleeping compartment. I've never thought much about their appliances, however.

The med students might love the pot, especially with the info you found on how to use it.

Audi A8 w/rice cooker. They evidently also have a model with a small fridge between the seats, where the bowls are stacked in this pic:

Are those rear facing jump seats on the right? I.e., limo?

"Special Edition" and "only in Japan" make me think this was done as a publicity stunt and clickbait. I've seen that kind of thing in aftermarket conversions. We have a lot of weird cars in Southern California. The rice cooker looks like you'd be in danger of burning your arm if you sat next to it. OTOH, taking the kids to the mountains is easier if your car can cook up some rice to make your meal around. :) Though a plug and a portable appliance would be more practical...

You can do just about anything, of course.

People have been doing the same kind of things the priusdwellers are doing for decades. The Prius has the advantage of not having to be a gearhead to do it. It's pretty much plug and play. :) And if you have solar on it, it's very very conservative on fuel/juice.